


Nine

by A_Kid_Named_Hiro



Series: MadaTobi Week [13]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 06:17:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18047132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Kid_Named_Hiro/pseuds/A_Kid_Named_Hiro
Summary: Prompt:Role swap/Clan swap(fromMadaTobi Week 2018).





	Nine

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: _Role swap/Clan swap_ (from **[MadaTobi Week 2018](https://madatobiweek.tumblr.com/post/174594542851/madatobi-week-2018-prompts)** ).

He is nine when it happens.

Wind in his ears. Water at his feet. Clash of blade against blade. Madara's arms shake with the force of it. He feels the tremor in his sweat-slicked fingers, the way it vibrates through his arms, his spine, his legs.

He holds fast, even when he feels himself crumbling beneath the strength of Hashirama's sword. His gaze that's angry and loyal and betrayed all at once.

Madara reads Hashirama's eyes the way he reads his own heart, the way he does not read Izuna at all.

Killing intent, upon him. The clink of a blade above him. Madara looks up, startled. Watches Senju Butsuma's kunai fall into the river. A stone, with it.

And suddenly, Izuna is before him. Standing between him and their enemies, ever the protector.

Breath leaves him, a single shuddering exhalation. Madara feels himself tremble. His grip tightens around the hilt of his sword.

Shock. Gratitude. Shame. Guilt. They war within him, churn something ugly within his gut. He had sworn to protect Izuna. From the wrath of their father. From the Senju. From being branded a traitor by his own clan.

But Izuna is here, speaking to the Senju in a voice that sounds so much like goodbye, so much like bitterness, so much like _pain._

He speaks of a dream that can never be, and Madara is all at once morbidly curious and hurt. For what is this dream that Izuna kept from Madara, yet so readily shared with his enemy?

Sickening rage in his gut. It builds within him, rises like bile to his throat, and Madara wants to scream and rage and tear out the hearts of the Senju.

He watches Izuna turn his back upon them. Heaviness in his steps. The dark of his eyes, giving way to red.

Madara is awed. Angered. _Afraid._ Torn between shock and triumph, envy and disgust and disbelief.

His brother's Sharingan, for loss. For grief. For love of a Senju.

Pride in his father's voice. Madara knows he should feel the same, but all he feels is sick, sick, sick. Grief and rage within his bones. An anguished howl, kept behind his teeth.

He has lost his brother.

To a Senju whose eyes bleed red like the blood of their siblings, their fallen kinsmen.

Red, like a Sharingan that is never extinguished.

  


* * *

  


The day Izuna awakens his Sharingan is the day Madara awakens _his._

  


* * *

  


Izuna had chosen his family — his _clan_ — and still, Madara feels betrayed.

His brother says nothing about the Senju, the dream they shared. It baffles Madara as it frustrates him. Makes him love and loathe his brother in equal measure.

Izuna is changed. Madara hears the heaviness in his footsteps, notices the resolve in his spine, the emptiness in his eyes.

His eyes, like flat mirrors, unreadable. Cold, even as his embrace is warm.

Izuna swears to protect him, always, always, and Madara thinks he does not know his brother.

Perhaps he has never known him at all.

  


* * *

  


He dreams of eyes, demonic, crimson, burning, burning.

Chakra wraps around him, so dark, so oppressive, he can barely breathe. Panic fills his lungs in place of air. Those eyes upon him. Murderous.

Madara wakes, in the dark of his bedroom, in the blanket of his own sweat. He can't stop trembling. From fear. From hatred. From something he cannot — is afraid to — name.

He has hated the Senju all his life. It was all he was taught, this anger, this rage passed from generation to generation. Hatred for the Senju has always been obligatory. Means loyalty.

Madara has always hated the Senju without knowing why.

He is nine when he learns to truly hate Senju Tobirama.

  


* * *

  


They meet — as Izuna had promised — upon the battlefield.

Madara thinks it is strange they had never met this way before. He sees Senju Tobirama and wants to run. Toward him, away from him, he does not know.

Something dark stirs within. It makes Madara's hand tighten around the hilt of his sword. Makes him move before he's realized he _had._ His pulse roars in his ears. He aims to strike.

But Hashirama is there, meeting him. Their blades clash like that day upon the river.

Sound of battle all around them. Madara feels the sudden spike of his brother's chakra, the way it sings like it's found its home, here amid carnage and an unexplained, age-old grudge.

And _Tobirama's._ Like the demon in his dream, this violent, powerful thing. Tobirama's chakra is a mass of malevolence. It is the forest. It is the earth. The force of it nearly sends Madara to his knees.

Hashirama drives him back, relentless, away from Tobirama and Izuna.

Madara is secretly glad for it.

  


* * *

  


They meet, time and again, this way.

Madara would make for Tobirama, always.

Hashirama would intercept him, always.

Izuna and Tobirama would battle each other as if they were fated to fight none else.

Madara would feel his brother's chakra, excited, _alive._

He would envy him, always.

  


* * *

  


There is a blood moon in the sky. Light, creeping into the open window of Madara's bedroom, painting him in swatches of pale red. Upon his bed, atop the covers, he is bare.

He lies upon his side, biting the corner of his pillow. His hand is a tight fist around his cock.

He pictures Tobirama, blood upon his face, his armor, his hair. The forest at his command. He conjures it from the earth. From the air. The bodies of his enemies. Wooden spikes and vines and roots that curl, that constrict, that impale upon his silent command. A surge of chakra. A gesture of his hand.

A forest of blood.

Madara's hand works a fast, jerky rhythm. Slick upon his fingers. Sweat beads his skin. Spit soaking the cotton of his pillow. He curls into himself, body aching with so much _need._

Tobirama's voice. Madara has heard it, this rich, commanding thing. He wonders what it would sound like around the shape of his name.

He thinks about Tobirama covered in the blood of his enemies. _Uchiha_ blood.

Madara comes, hard. He comes with shame and guilt and anger, pulsing in his veins like his raw, bleeding, broken heart.

  


* * *

  


When it happens, he does not see it coming.

He is blanketed in a cloud of steam. Barrage of kunai in his direction. Madara evades, without having to try. The steam does not blind him. Not while he bears the Sharingan, this curse, this gift, this _pride._

He remembers the way Hashirama had shut his eyes against the threat of it, and arrogance wars with disgust within him.

And all at once, Hashirama is there. Before him and not.

Madara glimpses the fire in his eyes and then he doesn't. The smoke clears and he is falling. Blood from his mouth. He does not know where it comes from.

His sword falls from his grip. He falls into his brother's arms. Hears panic in Izuna's voice, but Madara does not understand it.

And then he does. There is pain from nothingness, tearing through him, incinerating. Blood floods his mouth, spatters the ground. Izuna, yelling his name.

Madara wants to fall, but Izuna is there, by his side, holding him up. He swears to save him. He is so close, yet his voice sounds distorted, faraway, as if he is underwater.

Dark spots mar his vision. Madara feels himself fading. Drowning. Clawing his way to the surface.

And then he feels Tobirama. That dark, terrifying chakra, this sharp, scalding thing. Madara feels it lance through the darkness, through the pain. Electric. He jolts awake.

Voices, around him. He knows his brother is speaking to Tobirama, though he does not know what they are saying. Something about defeat. Something about ending this.

And then there is warmth, enveloping him. Permeating his skin, working its way through his bones. Familiar and not. Madara feels himself falling away and for once, he is unafraid.

  


* * *

  


He wakes to find Izuna by his side. His eyes are red. Worry is etched upon his skin. Life, in the depth of his irises. "You're finally awake."

He says this with a smile.

Madara does not miss the relief, the gratitude within it.

He struggles to sit up. Recognizes the Uchiha infirmary. Madara is both relieved and disappointed to be here. "The Senju?"

Izuna stands. He walks toward the window. His back is to Madara when he says, "We are to have a ceasefire for now."

A ceasefire. The shock of it leaves him reeling. Years of battle, generations of war, and now _this._ Madara can barely comprehend it.

Confusion and anger and hope war within him. He thinks of no longer meeting Tobirama upon the battlefield. Of feeling the weight of his chakra, this powerful, breath-halting thing, so close, so goddamn _close._

Tobirama, who stole his brother, who ignites a fire within Izuna, who brings him to life again and again.

Tobirama, who Madara fears and loathes and admires and desires.

His head hurts. He can feel Tobirama in his veins, thrumming.

"— there may one day be peace." Izuna's voice filters through the jumble of his thoughts. Exhaustion and hope in his tone, wrapped around these impossible words.

Madara stares at his brother, uncomprehending. "Peace?"

Izuna turns to face him. "You once asked me about my dream. The one I shared with Tobirama."

Words leave him. For nine years, Madara has wanted to know. This secret he had abhorred and desired. This secret ambition that Izuna had trusted to a stranger, an enemy, instead of his own kin. Curiosity blooms with the hurt within his chest.

"We dreamed of _peace,_ little brother. A village, for our clans. Where we could protect our remaining brothers. Where the children could grow without war. Without this pointless cycle of hatred and vengeance."

Izuna takes a deep breath. His exhalation sounds so old. "I almost lost you today. I failed to do the one thing I _swore_ I'd do. The one thing I was fighting for." He looks at Madara and there is fire in his eyes, the fire that was extinguished that day by the river.

"Today, Tobirama reminded me of that dream. He reminded me when he saved your life."

Madara's eyes go wide at this revelation. Breath is a sharp inhale within his lungs. _Tobirama._ His chakra, warm as it is deadly, in the depth of his marrow. Madara had not imagined it.

Izuna's hands upon his shoulders. He holds Madara's gaze. Truth and resolution within his eyes. "I will not fail you again, Madara. I swear it."

  


* * *

  


He returns to the river and Tobirama is there.

He stands in the place they first met, upon the water, like a god and a demon, somewhere between moonlight and shadow.

Tobirama is resplendent to behold. Frost-pale and death-dark, tattoos like blood upon his face. He looks so at ease here, at home amid water and earth, and the forest around them.

Tobirama does not look at him, but Madara knows that he is aware of his presence.

He looks instead, at the sky, and Madara wonders what he sees in it.

He is hesitant to approach. They are no longer enemies. But they are not yet allies.

And still, he watches. He cannot bring himself to look away, for Tobirama is a mesmerizing, confounding thing. Madara cannot make sense of the way Senju Tobirama makes him feel.

This man who he was taught to fear, who he learned to hate and envy and _want._

This man, who saved him.

Tobirama looks at him, this sharp, penetrating thing. There is a surprising openness to his gaze.

Madara feels himself shiver beneath the intensity of it.

  


* * *

  


When it happens, he is eighteen.

The air is still. The forest, quiet. It makes everything else seem so loud. His breaths. The rapid thrum of his heart. His chakra, singing, singing. Drawn to Tobirama's own, this forceful, powerful, hypnotic thing.

Tobirama stands, tall and cold and terrible, and for once, Madara is unafraid.

For there is warmth beneath the darkness. He has seen all the horrors Tobirama could conjure. He has also seen his kindness.

The dream he held on to, even after Izuna had turned his back on it. This impossible dream that is weaving its way into reality.

Tobirama's hand. It reaches toward Madara, open, inviting.

This hand that kills. This hand that heals.

Madara wants to know what else it could do. Wants to learn every line, every callus, every scar. The path of veins beneath pale, pale skin.

Tobirama's eyes. They look at him, raw, intense, alight with something Madara dares not name. Eyes that say so much even when his lips do not move.

Madara takes a breath. Takes a step toward Tobirama.

Hatred bleeds from him. Into the air. Into the earth.

He will leave it there.


End file.
